tag added At 11:13 AM 6/8/2011, John Gardner wrote: >$20 sounds like a deal to me... > >http://www.parallax.com/Store/Microcontrollers/PropellerDevelopmentBoards/= tabid/514/CategoryID/73/List/0/SortField/0/Level/a/ProductID/748/Default.as= px My two boards arrived a couple of days ago and I have to say that I=20 am impressed with them. They include a FTDI232RL for both programming the Propeller as well=20 for your own use. All of the port pins are brought out to a pair of=20 headers - one is a female dual-row socket permanently soldered to the=20 board, the other is an empty set of holes that matches the soldered-in head= er. The LEDs are all buffered - they will have exactly zero effect on any=20 external circuitry that you might attach to those port pins. The touch-pads are simple pads that have been isolated with 100k=20 resistors. Again - minimal or no effect on any external use of those=20 port pins. The Propeller software is cool: you can choose to either run your=20 current program right from the RAM in the Propeller (can you say:=20 Darned Fast!) or write it to the on-board 64K flash eeprom (which=20 does take some seconds). Note that the Propeller can use only half=20 of that flash - what the Propeller doesn't need is available for your=20 use (minimum 32K). The Parallax team might have gotten a little ahead of themselves by=20 announcing this as early as they did - I had to go searching for the=20 schematics and layout files. There was also no demo software=20 available - the first thing that I did was to write a simple SPIN=20 program that lit each LED above the touch switches when its touch pad=20 was touched. I did see yesterday, though, that demo files were now available. The SPIN language seems fairly simple to use but appears to have=20 substantial capability. You also have the option of writing in assembler. I can tell you that I find SPIN code listings to be very easy to=20 read. I wish that I could say that about "C" - my brain just doesn't=20 'get' "C". All in all - I think that its a very worthwhile board to play=20 with. My first project is going to be something that I mentioned on=20 the list a while back - a bi-directional RS422 merge box for several=20 serial data streams. The 8 cores on the Propeller make this a fairly=20 trivial project. dwayne --=20 Dwayne Reid Trinity Electronics Systems Ltd Edmonton, AB, CANADA (780) 489-3199 voice (780) 487-6397 fax www.trinity-electronics.com Custom Electronics Design and Manufacturing --=20 http://www.piclist.com PIC/SX FAQ & list archive View/change your membership options at http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist .